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Few Choir Auditioners Have A Prayer

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By DAN BARRY, The New York Times

Published: November 4, 2007

SALT LAKE CITY - The first to audition this evening is a baritone and computer consultant of 51 who has tried and failed twice before. He is wearing a blue blazer that offsets his pale expression of calm terror. It is time to stand naked, vocally speaking; it is time to sing.

Two men in white shirts and dark ties sit at a foldout table before him, pencils poised. What they are listening for, the untrained ear may not catch: the sound of one's ability to meld with many in singing glory to God. They know it when they hear it.

The men lead the baritone, Devin Asay, through a few brief exercises, then ask for a hymn of his choice in the key of his choice. Soon, in a basement space somewhere beneath the manicured grounds of Temple Square, a 17th-century hymn becomes a computer consultant's humble argument to be included in the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

"OK, Devin," says Craig Jessop, the choir's congenial director. "You'll be hearing from us probably in two weeks."

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is so familiar, so American, that its Mormon foundation is sometimes forgotten. The intolerant among us might question the presidential worthiness of Mitt Romney based on his Mormon beliefs, yet have in their collection the choir's transcendent recording, say, of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

Tonight the central concern is not politics but music. Jessop and his associate director, Mack Wilberg, have 32 spots to fill in their choir of 360, whose members are paid only by the honor. The chosen will join a tradition dating to 1847, when a small choir sang for a church conference here in the Salt Lake Valley, less than a month after the arrival of the first Mormon settlers. Singing in the choir may be a calling, then, an expression of one's faith - but you still have to try out.

"They are scared to death," Jessop says in sympathy. "They have five minutes to prove themselves."

It was simpler, once. Jessop's own audition nearly 35 years ago consisted of singing "O My Father" in the basement for the choir's director, who listened and said: See you Thursday. Bring a letter from your bishop.

Back then, once you were in, you were in for life. When Jessop joined the choir in 1973, the man beside him was in his 80s and had sung on the first broadcast of the choir's weekly radio program, "Music and the Spoken Word" - in 1929.

Today, applicants must be ages 25 to 55, and can remain with the choir for 20 years or until age 60. They must be active in the Mormon church, be recommended by their bishop and live within 100 miles of Temple Square. They also must be able to sing a little.

Recently, some 300 people responded to the choir's invitation to send a recording of their singing one of two songs.

After hours of listening and wincing, Jessop and Wilberg cut the number of candidates in half, then cut the number again by administering a written test for musical aptitude. And then there were 94.

The tension in the room is understandable. Most of those auditioning do not perform for a living. They answer telephones, restore antiques, teach children, work in cosmetology. Now they are seeking a position in a choir that sings before presidents and kings; a choir in which part of the reward, Jessop says, is that wondrous experience in which "you yourself disappear, and you become a part of another whole."

What rises during these hours, then, is one glorious jumble of a hymn, of how great thou art, high on a mountaintop, bread of the world, nearer my God to thee, gladly sung by people of faith. Jessop rewards them with thanks and whatever hope can be gleaned from these words: You'll be hearing from us in a couple of weeks.

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